Vista
On-Line

November 14, 2002 edition

Dearest RFPI members and listeners,

Greetings from Costa Rica! We are delighted to introduce our newest endeavor, Vista Online, a project that we hope will
become a great resource for you, our listeners, in keeping informed about
Radio For Peace International news and happenings.

In the past, we have offered a quarterly print version of our newsletter,
Vista, to members and listeners of RFPI around the world, as well as an audio
version for those who requested it. Realizing the limited reach of such a
project, we are now hoping to expand the reach of Vista by offering an online
version.

Vista Online will be a monthly e-newsletter delivered monthly via e-mail.
Included in each newsletter will be information on our first-class programming, station news, local happenings, fundraising efforts, as well as
comments from you, our listeners.

To truly make this a resource for the whole community, it must be available
to our friends and listeners who don't have access to e-mail or the internet.
To accomplish this we are asking each of our online subscribers to share this
information with at least one organization or individual who does not have
access to cyberspace. RFPI staff and interns will also read Vista Online on
the air periodically through the month to give our isolated listeners a
chance to get the same information. Thank you in advance for helping us
reach as many people as possible.

We hope that Vista Online will be able to solve the "information gap" that
our traditional method of delivering Vista often causes by providing you
information that is both recent and more frequent. Along with our monthly
dispatch, we will also offer periodic "blurbs" that will help to bridge the
gap between each month by keeping you informed to news and events as they
happen.

We hope that you are as excited as we are about this new project and we hope
that you will enjoy this first edition that we have prepared for you. If you
have any comments or questions about Vista Online, or about the radio station
in general, please don't hesitate to contact us via email at info@rfpi.org.

Welcome to Vista Online, the first edition of our e-newsletter aimed at
bringing you news and information about Radio For Peace International.

Internet Woes

As many of our members and listeners are aware, RFPI suffered a small set
back last month when our high-speed Internet connection was disabled causing
some disruption to our radio programming and work in general.

Due to the loss of our high-speed Internet connection, we have been unable to
provide to our listeners some of the programming that has made RFPI the
station that it is. The two programs that have been most affected by this
have been our extremely popular Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, and Free
Speech Radio News. Although we have periodically been able to bring you these
programs over the past few weeks, the un-reliability of our dial-up Internet
connection has meant that new editions of these programs have been few and
far between.

We are happy to report, however, that our Internet problems will soon be a
thing of the past! Thanks to generous donations by Democracy Now!, Free
Speech Radio News, and Pacifica Radio, we have received the funding necessary
to set up a new, direct high-speed Internet connection. We are hopeful that
this new system will be up and running in two or three weeks, and as soon as
it is, we will resume broadcasting our outstanding programming.

Thank you to all our listeners and members who wrote to us with both moral
and financial support, and a BIG thanks to Democracy Now!, Free Speech Radio
News, and Pacifica Radio!

Power Troubles No More!

In more good news, we are also happy to report that our electricity problems
have also been solved thanks to generous donations from you, our members and
listeners.

Early this month, we learned that our electricity would soon be cut by the
Costa Rican power company due to financial difficulties. Faced with a bill of
$6,000 US that we did not feel we could pay, a call for support was issued
over the airwaves to help keep RFPI on the air.

Within a few days, a number of listeners and members responded to our fundraising request and we are happy to report that we have received above
and beyond our funding needs.

We would like to thank Tin Jo Restaurant here in San Jose for their generous
donation. If you are live here in Costa Rica, or if you are ever in
the San Jose area, a visit to the Tin Jo Restaurant on Calle 11, between Avenidas 6
and 8, is well worth the effort as their Indian, Chinese, Thai and Japanese
cuisine is the best in the area.

Another special thanks to a member, and long time listener who wishes to
remain anonymous, for their generous support. Their donation gave us the
resources we needed to put us over the top!

Fundraising and Contact

And finally, we wish to invite all our readers, members and listeners to
contact us here at RFPI if they have any questions or comments about Vista
Online, our programming, or the station in general. If any of you have
comments or ideas on how we can improve our service to you, please send us a
note via e-mail or traditional mail.

Also, we invite all our supporters to help us out financially in any way you
can. Although we have received a great amount of support over the past few
weeks, fundraising at RFPI is on a continual basis. If you can offer financial, material or equipment support in any way, please don't hesitate to
contact us. You can do so via: